Trick deck of cards



- ing cards 2 (only a Patented J une f 16, p 1925.

UNITED STATES PATENT OF TRICK DECK 0F CARDS.

Application inea May 24, 1923. serial no. 641,090.

To all t0/0m t may concern: v

Be it known that I, IVILLrAM I. DAvIDsoN, a citizen of the United States, residing at Long Beach, in the county of Los Angeles and State of California, have invented new and useful Improvements in'Trick Decks of Cards, of which the following is a speciiication. Y

This invention relates to trick decks of cards, and has for its object to provide a .deck of cards of any suitable number and of any suitable suit and facial decoration.

An object is to provide a., deck of cards for amusement purposes by the playing of tricks, and an object is to provide a trick deck which is of extremely simple construe tion, and further object is to provide a method for readily converting standard decks of cards into trick decks at small expense.

l'Other objects and advantages will be made manifest in the following specication of embodiments of the invention illustrated in the accompanying drawing, wherein Fig. 1 is a perspective showing a portion of the trick deck of cards.

F ig. 2.is a longitudinal section through- 'a number of the stacked cards.

Fig. 3 shows the performance of one of the tricks.-

Fig. 4 is anedge view showing a modified form of thel trick deck.

For purposes of illustration the present trick deck is composed of common playing 59, in number, and of this number about one-half are all identical, and

in the present case the identical cards are shown as aces of spades, and the remainfew of which are shown) are of the usual suits, 26 of the usual complete deck being discarded and 26 of the identic cards, here shown as aces of spades, being substituted for the omitted 2G cards.

The identic cards designated 3 are by my method cut off to make them slightly shorter than the remaining standard cards of the deck, as is clearly indicated in Fig. 2. The remaining 26 cards of the deck (or whatever number may be used) are then buffed along their transverse end edges in any suitable manner, the result of which is to set up slight transverse burrs 2a along the end edges and on each corner of the end edges.

With a deck of cards composed of these two varieties, that is, a number of substantially full length playing cards and another number slightly shorter, and in 'this case being the identic card 3, the cards are stacked in alternate positions as shown in Fig. 2, one of the shorter cards being placed between two of the slightly longer cards. It will be seen, therefore, that the shorter cards will have their transverse ends practically concealed when the cards are stacked, yet the difference in the deck of cards will beA practically undetectable to the casual observer ofthe deck when the same has been stacked up as shown in Fig. 2.

A number of various tricks may be performed, one of which is clearly illustrated in Figs. 2 and 3 wherein a comparatively sharp edged instrument I may be pushed against one end of the deck of cards, and it has been found from actual practice with the deck that the edge of the instrument willinvariably pass between the burred edges 2a of the suit cards 2 and will come to rest against one of the shorter identic cards 3 with a result that the engaged card can be pushed upwardly from the deck. The trick in this illustration consists of the fact that irrespective to -the pushing of the inst-rument I at any apparent vportion along the end of the deck one of the identic cards will be thrust into view. The observer, being uninitiated, will be astonished to find, believing there is only one of the cards (as the ace of spades) in the deck, that this imagined single ace of spades may be pushed into view bythe mere application of the instrument to the end of the deck in a haphazard manner.

It will be obvious, when the cards have been stacked up and the deck is held be tween the finger of one hand and the finger, or fingers, of the other hand is pressed down upon the deck, and the latter bowed so as to cause the cards to spring to an upright po sition as successively released, that the shorter cards will snugly follow the released leading adjacent longer card and, therefore, only the faces of the longer cards will be presented to view, and as the longer cards are springing toward the observer it will appear that the deck consists of the usual Suits of cards since the faces of the longer cards are displayed in various suits. Conversely, if the deck be bowed in the reverse direction then the longer cards will spring away from the former, or with their backs away from observer and, therefore, the vshorter cards will spring away following the lll) longer cards and their identic faces will he presented successively through the deck as the cards are released.

A further trick will consist in placing the cards face down, dividing the cards so as to present one of the identic cards on top of Vthe stack and then asking the observer to observe the character of the top card which is then placed bac-k on top of the deck. Following this the deck is divided into a 'plurality of subdivisions, and if carefully done each of the top cards of the subdivisions vwill consist of an identic suit card, and therefore the observer will beasked to select from the top of any one of the substacks a` card, and he will ind this to be one of the identic cards. l

From the above it will be seen that I have provided a deck of cards for performing numerous tricks and method for making same.

A slightly modified form of the deck is shown in Fig. l wherein instead of the cards being cut to produce two groups of different lengths one-half of the deck of cards, being that half which comprises the various suits, will have their end roughened up as by sandpapering to produce a substantially burred edge 2lb thus practically vlengthening the cards in this way to provide for the desired diderence.

Further embodiments, modifications and variations may be resorted to within the spirit of the invention.

lThat is claimed is:

l. A trick deck of cards consisting of two groups which have differentiated end edges whereby when the cards of the two groups are stacked in alternate positions the end edges of one group of the cards will provide means to receive pressure of the players finger, or fingers, when applied to the end of the deck, the dierentiatlon consisting in that the transverse end edges of the cards of one group are substantially burred.

2. A trick deck of cards consisting of two groups which have differentiated end edges whereby when the cards of the two groups are stacked in alternate positions the end edges of one group of the cards will provide means to receive pressure of the players finger, or fingers, when applied to the end of the deck, the differentiation consisting in that the transverse end edges of the cards of one group are substantially burred, one of the groups of cards consisting of cards of less length than the burred cards. y

3. The method of making a trick deck of cards `which consistsin burring the transverse ends of the cards of a group and cutting another group of cards of similar pattern and different. suits to a slight-ly less length than of the cards of the first mentioned group.

4. The method of making a` trick deck of cards which consists in cutting the cards of a group each to a predetermined dimension, and burring the transverse ends of the cards of another group, which cards have a length slightly Igreater than the cards of the first main group.

5. he method of making a trick Teck of cards which consists in the roughening of the transverse ends of the cards of a group and cutting another group of cards .of similar pattern and different suits to be of slightly less length than that of the cards of the first mentioned group after they have been roughened, but of the saine length that the cards of the iirst group were before the rougheni'ng operation.4

ln testimony whereof I' have signed my name to this specifica-tion.

W. I. DAVIDSON. 

